Hello Belgium, hello friend! Time for a pintje!

We had planned on making Bruges, Belgium our last stop on our adventure, as its medieval architecture is well-suited for the festive season.

But in a stroke of pure coincidence, our good friend Nic Bouckaert had planned on stopping through Belgium to see his family in early December and invited us to join him at his grandfather's house. So, we tacked on a few days to the front of our trip and hopped on the Eurostar to Lille, the closest stop to his family's home.

Unfortunately, this trip in particular was marked by cold, rainy weather and dark days, so any shots I did get were taken at nighttime when it dried out and became safe to pull out my camera. Bouckaert picked us up at the train station and we jetted off to little Deerlijk, where his grandfather lives in a beautiful home. Honestly, one of the highlights of this trip for us was the great big bedroom, bathtub, and the comfiest bed we've ever slept on. So much more room than our little flat, which at this juncture seems to get smaller by the day!

After a nice afternoon walk around the family's property, Bouckaert took us to Kortrijk for dinner at tiny, charming Cyrano de Bergerac, where we ate a magnificent meal of red fawn and frites (with mayonnaise of course), and shared a most delicious Dame Blanche for dessert. The Dame Blanche - vanilla ice cream with dark hot Belgian chocolate sauce - is just about my favorite thing on this earth, and reminded me of its yummy Texas counterpart, Merm sauce! After dinner, we went for a few pintjes at a nearby pub and met Eduoard (who W&L grads might be interested to know is now known as the Eurotard throughout Belgium) and a few of his friends, one of whom is a talented emerging fashion designer in Belgium. She was lovely and we had a fun time talking fabrics!

The next day we went to Gent, a beautiful medieval town known for its:

enormous cathedrals,


towers and


a very cool fort.

It was an excellent night for unearthing treasures from Christmas past,



and walking the cobbly, Christmasy streets with an old friend.

We then set off for dinner with 7 or so of Bouckaert's 50ish Belgian cousins + their spouses. A fun treat and another delicious meal here, as well as pintjes and wine all around. A great big thank you to Bouckaert for having us, and showing us around beautiful Belgium!

Hung for treason

We kid, we kid. Hung for Christmas of course. Though in our window instead of on a tree. These little stockings belong to some cheeky Swedish Christmas elves (sprites). They are watching over our flat while we are in Belgium this weekend, on the hunt for a few more friends to keep them company next year as well as gifts for a few of the people on our nice list.



Cold and rainy Belgium should make an appearance here soon...xo

Giving thanks

So much to be thankful for this year:




Family, who we count on to make us laugh


Friends near and far (they're funny too)




This amazing opportunity to be in London together


Scruffy puppies


and pretty red ones too


(they're best as a pair)


Home (or maybe we're just starting to miss it a little...)

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours from lovely Londontown! We love and miss y'all.

Lisa & Nicholas

The rest of our trip, brought to you by the iPhone

Forgot my battery charger and Sigtuna ate the last of my camera battery. Thus, here's a random assortment of pictures from the rest of our Sweden trip, courtesy of the iPhone:

We ate a very traditional meal on our last night at Gondolen, overlooking this view:


And ordered this adventurous, traditional Swedish appetizer of herring prepared six ways, both pickled and cooked:

Dad would be proud that I ordered this. It was semi-gross, semi-delicious. The jury's still out.

We went to the ice bar:




And along the way saw a few things that made us scratch our heads:



(GROSS)



Waddled around the cobbly streets of the Gamla Stan in our chunky warm clothes:



And happened upon this tiny, timber-ceilinged cafe in the Gamla Stan, which had to have been one zillion years old and was oozing warmth and charm:







What an amazing adventure this was! We can't wait to return to Sweden; it was perfect in spite of its weather and dark days. Thanks for stopping by!

Charming Sigtuna, Sweden's oldest town. Home to:

Country scenery


Monastic ruins


Runic stones (which inspired Tolkien's Hobbit)






Charming streets


Crooked doors, Christmas wreaths


Apple trees


Window boxes


Country homes


Happy tourists in their Smartcars


and of course, varm choco, courtesy of the local chocolatier.

Vasa

The Vasa Museum is dedicated to a 17th century Swedish warship that sunk before it even left the harbor, thanks to an overzealous king who wanted two cannon decks rather than the standard one (among other impractical requests). It was pulled up nearly completely intact in the early 60s and still hasn't completely dried. This was a really interesting museum with an amazing array of well-preserved artifacts from the ship that give insight into 17th century naval warfare and life in Sweden. Falling into the small world after all category, Vasa has ties to Texas. Apparently, our friends the Aggies (and their world-class marine archeology program) have been called on to help preserve the ship. Read more about Vasa here.

The sun sets in Sweden...

...at 3:30 PM. Luckily for Stockholm (and us), it's even prettier at night.

Hej! from Sweden

We decided to take our next trip to Stockholm; it's so difficult to get to from the States, and well, we'd never been to Stockholm before. Everyone warned us it would be cold, but we don't mind the cold - so, off we go!

Stockholm, a city of glittering islands connected by bridges, is considered the heart of the Nordic countries. We learned quickly that it is quite expensive (we are finding London to be quite the bargain compared to the rest of Europe these days), but we found a fantastic Orbitz deal on a brand new hotel that helped defray costs. Our hotel was on a serene, lush island in the middle of the city called Skeppsholmen.



The hotel is housed inside of an old navy barracks, which has been gutted and redesigned in sleek, modern Scandanavian decor. Two other main islands of the city, Gamla Stan and Ostermalm, surround Skeppsholmen, which makes for a beautiful walk home. A delicious smorgasbord breakfast was included too, which allowed us to skate through lunch some days and splurge instead on a fantastic, traditional Swedish dinner. Swedish cuisine is DELICIOUS.

The people in Sweden are so incredibly friendly, and all speak perfect English. It was the first country I've been to where people automatically assume we are native but we didn't speak a lick of the language (not even "sorry, I don't speak Swedish"), so it was a bit disarming when people started speaking to us in Swedish like we'd known them all our lives!

November in Londontown:

Guy Fawkes (remember, remember the 5th of November!)


Ice skating


and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Harrods!